


T Minus Six Months

by thewhiterose3



Series: Syntax [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 20:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewhiterose3/pseuds/thewhiterose3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris wanted no part of it, but it was their name and their legacy and Argent children don’t have the luxury of choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	T Minus Six Months

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is the first in an AU series of fics starring the Teen Wolf character who has stolen my brain, Chris Argent. His super power is describing things in horrific detail and I find him fascinating. Unbeta'd, so please bear with me.

Lunch is simultaneously Chris’ favorite and least favorite half hour of the school day. He stopped trying to make new friends at school a long time ago. His family never stays more than nine months in one place and he figured out early on that caring and being cared about simply hurt too much when it could never last. As such, sitting alone, back to the wall on the cafeteria floor would always remind him that he was that kid. Even at seventeen, he was still and always would be the new kid that no one truly knew, the weird standoffish loner kid that hasn’t had a best friend, or really a true friend at all, since elementary school.  
  
And then there was the lunch itself. Somehow, even five years later, biting into his self-made peanut butter and jelly sandwich never tasted as good as when his mother used to make it. Five years gone and Chris still felt her loss, her absence everyday, though the grief was no longer as sharp as it once was. Eating lunch alone wasn’t all bad, though. It meant that Chris could pull out a book, pretend to read, and then partake in his very favorite pastime of listening and watching his fellow students.  
  
Chris’ secret love, though it was only really a secret because there was no one to tell, is language. Word choice, syntax, and tone all come together to create meaning. And even that meaning is fluid. Depending on who speaks the words and to whom they are spoken can change everything. In the world of high school where honesty was slim and sarcasm reigned supreme, you could never just hear the words, everything was interconnected. Even sarcasm wasn’t a static thing. The sarcasm could be biting or fond or alluring. Innuendo and slang put another twist on the simple words spoken. Just by paying attention, Chris could tell you more about some of his classmates than their closest friends.  
  
Kimberly was pissed at her best friend for joining the cheerleading squad and then forgetting about her. She was trying so hard to speak with her silences, but Tammy just didn’t notice or care. Despite being captain, Bobby really hated the wrestling team. His father came to every match, though, so there was no way he’d give it up. You could tell by his pauses, by his lack of ownership or personal opinion on any practice or match. If someone were to ask Bobby about his opinion on a match, his answer would always be about the team. He wasn’t being modest, there was no blushing to accompany his averted eyes, rather than lie, he had simply become a master at evading the question.  
  
Chris knew what that was like. Another reason he never lets anyone get too close is his family. How do you explain to someone that no, you can’t come hang out at my house because approximately seventy percent of the time the path from my front door to my bedroom is booby trapped. I also can’t go over to your place because if I don’t come straight home without giving my father advanced notice, he will assume that I’ve been kidnapped by mythological creatures and track me down via rampant use of threats of bodily harm and possibly a long sword.  
  
But at least he had school. For eight hours a day, Chris could escape his father, his sister, their training, all of it, and just be a teenager who was better at books than people. As bad as his father could be, at least he wasn’t one of those hunters who homeschooled their children, trained them night and day with no escape. Thank everything that his dad loved research too much to give up his library and be constantly on the move. Instead, the hunter community came to his father for long term, in depth research questions. When one of them had a feeling, an inkling, something that would need the long game with subtlety as opposed to destroying the monster of the week and moving on, then Gerard Argent was the man for the job. What this meant to Chris and his younger sister Kate was that they got to go public school, often staying for the whole school year before they had to leave again, move on to the next assignment.  
  
But this was Chris’ last  year in school and though he dreamed of getting his PhD, he knew his father would never let that happen. They had been trained for years. It started out with tracking; the family would always rent a house in or on the edge of some sort of natural expanse, be it woods or marsh or lake. His mom would leave them clues, mysteries to solve and trails to follow. The reward was usually hugs, praise, and lunch, which was more than enough motivation for Chris to leave Kate, three years his junior, in the dust. They also had arms training, bows and swords and even guns. They always learned safety first and it was always time to bond as a family and learn together and Chris cherished those moments. Chris, like his mother, preferred the stealth of a bow while Kate was drawn to firearms. Fairy tales were never just stories, they were real texts to study and learn, to decipher reality from exaggeration. To find the hidden truth that had been warped over time and telling.  
  
But then the accident happened. His mom had gone out to buy groceries while they were in school and the police said that it was a drunk driver. In the middle of the day, broad sunlight and some  idiot drove across the line and into the one person holding Chris’ family in the light. Everything had changed after that. His dad had gotten darker, angrier, so bitter at a world that kept on living when his wife had not. And so he dove even further into the supernatural, if that was even possible. He turned his pent up anger toward the only acceptable avenue available, the monsters. And that was a new phrase, before they had been creatures and beings and now they were monsters. His dad stopped talking about codes of ethics and morality and instead started lecturing them on the necessity of the kill. And while Chris had loved their mother’s games and training, he wanted no part of this. A voice inside him wanted to scream that he never signed up for this, that his mother never would have wanted this. But he never did. His father had become something to be feared.  
  
They no longer had target practice, they went hunting. They killed animals that they did not eat. They burned and salted animal corpses for practice. And as the repulsion grew in Chris, as he saw the implications of doing this to people, no matter what they did or who they turned into, he watched in horror as his baby sister reacted in the opposite way. She loved it, she loved every second of the death and destruction. She gleefully killed and came to their father with new ways, new suggestions to destroy and burn. And their father praised her, encouraged her. Chris tried to stop it, he’d try to ask questions about what if they surrendered, what about making a truce, what if they had never hurt anyone else and their only crime was the family that they were born into. That is when the lectures started, horror stories that Chris had been trained to pick apart were shown as whole truths. Redemption tales were suddenly taught to be entirely false. They were animals, they were monsters, they needed to be taken out for the safety of all those who did not know their danger.  
  
Chris wanted no part of it. But it was their name and their legacy and Argent children don’t have the luxury of choice. So Chris took harder classes, joined extracurricular activities, did everything in his power to stay at school as long as possible. School was his haven, his safe place, and Chris dreaded his graduation day. He had six months left, six months to find a way out. And with that thought in mind, Chris left his spot on the wall and fled to the library. He needed to make a plan.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be, blah blah woof woof.


End file.
